The present disclosure relates to a paper feed device and an image forming apparatus provided with the same, and relates particularly to a paper feed device including a first cassette and a second cassette that are arranged side by side and an image forming apparatus provided with the same.
An image forming apparatus represented by a copy machine, a printer, or the like is provided with a paper feed device that houses a plurality of sheets and is used to feed paper to an image forming portion in the image forming apparatus.
Herein, for example, in a case where one image forming apparatus is shared among many users, a sheet consumption amount per image forming apparatus is increased. As a solution to this, there is known a paper feed device that is provided with a plurality of large-capacity sheet cassettes.
Such a paper feed device is provided with a first cassette and a second cassette that have a large capacity and are arranged side by side in a cassette width direction and a casing having a cassette housing portion in which the first cassette and the second cassette are housed. The casing has a pair of side surface portions that are disposed to be opposed to each other in the cassette width direction and a bottom surface portion. In the casing, there are provided a pair of outer rails that are disposed along both the side surface portions, respectively, and an inner rail that is disposed at a center portion on the bottom surface portion in the cassette width direction. The first cassette is slidably supported to one of the pair of outer rails and the inner rail, and the second cassette is slidably supported to the other of the pair of outer rails and the inner rail.
In this type of paper feed device, weights of respective outer-side portions of the first cassette and the second cassette in the cassette width direction are supported by both the side surface portions of the casing. Weights of respective inner-side portions of the first cassette and the second cassette, on the other hand, are applied to the center portion on the bottom surface portion in the cassette width direction. The bottom surface portion is flat plate-shaped and thus lacks strength to sufficiently support weights of the respective inner-side portions of the first cassette and the second cassette. For this reason, a front lower stay and a rear lower stay that extend in the cassette width direction are provided in a front end portion of the bottom surface portion (a downstream-side end portion thereof in a cassette pull-out direction) and a rear end portion of the bottom surface portion (an upstream-side end portion thereof in the cassette pull-out direction), respectively, so that the inner rail is supported by the front lower stay and the rear lower stay.